Marquee letter and support



3Q 1939. M. GALLAS 2,143,731

MARQUEE LETTER AND SUPPORT Filed Oct. 26, 1957 IN VEN TOR.

/ ATTORNEYS.

l in

Patented Jan. 10, 1939 i UNITE STATES ,EATENT OFFICE 9 Claims.

My invention relates to improvements in a marqueeletter and support, .and it consists .of the combinations, constructions and arrangements :hereinafter described and claimed.

=It is a standard. practice to place marquee letters in front of a translucent glass that is illuminated from the rear. Some of the light rays projected from the glass will cut across the faces of the letters and will make them appear smaller --in areathan they actually are. Therefore the letters will look smaller at night than during the day -and the sign will not be readable from the -same distance at night as during the day.

Theprincipal object of my invention is to provide.a letterwhich will appear the samesize at night under artificial illuminationas in the daytime. To accomplish this, I bound the letter -with a raisedrim and this rim is provided with acolor-difiering from the color on the main body of'theletter. For example, the main body of the letter maybe black and the rim may be colored green; During the daytime the letter will appear as a black letter with agreen border, while at night the rays of light from the glass will practically obscure the colored border, but the raised rim forming the border will prevent the lightrays from hiding any .portion of the black body of the letter. The letter will therefore appear to be of the-same sizeunder artificial illumination as it appears in the daytime.

A further object of my invention is to provide a letter for a marquee in which the raised rim has its top surface bevelled inwardly so that it theletters may be piled one above the other without causing the upper letters to scrape the paint from the rims on the lower letters. Each letter isalso provided with a depending projection for holding the letter in a marquee rail in a manner hereinafter described, and this projection has an opening therein by means of which the letter may be suspended from a supporting member, such as a short piece of pipe or a nail. The rail on the marquee is also designed to yieldingly grip the letters. The rail is preferab1y made from sheet metal that is bent to form a slot that will receive the depending projections of the letters. The outer wall of the slot has its upper edge flanged outwardly for supporting the letters and this wall hassuflicient spring qualities for yieldingly receiving the projections of the lettersand to hold theminproper position in frontoi the glass. The rail also has upper and lower slots for receiving the glass of the marquee.

55 :The letters may be quickly disposed in position and then moved along the rail into the desired place.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the following specification, and thenovel features of the device will be particularly pointed out in the appended claims.

My invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing forming a part of this application, in which- Figure l is a front elevation of a letter show- 1 ing it in position on the improved marquee rail;

Figure 2 is a vertical section along the line 22 of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a horizontal section along, the line 33 of Figure 1; and

Figure 4 illustrates how the letters may be placed one above the other when not in use.

In carrying out my invention I show a cross section through a marquee in Figure 2, and it will be noted that each rail l of the marquee is formed from sheet metal and the metal is bent to provide an upper slot 2 for a glass 3 and a second upper slot 4 for receiving removable marquee letters indicated generally at 5. The front wall 6, forming one side of the slot 4 is preferably reinforced by rib l and the top of the front Wall 6 is provided with an outwardly extending flange 8. The rail I also has a slot 9 extending upwardly fromthe bottom and this slot receives the upper edge of another marquee glass similar to the glass 3.

Figure 2 further shows the rails as being provided with flanges l0 and II extending rearwardly from the glasses 3. The flange H] is riveted or otherwise suitably secured to an inclined reflecting member l2. The member l2 forms a part of a light reflector the glass 3 and the member merges into a horizontal portion E3 of the reflector that carries light sockets l4 and lights I5. The light reflector also has an upwardly extending portion I6 that connects the horizontal portion IS with a second horizontal portion H. The portion ll carries light sockets l8 and lights 19. An upwardly inclined member 20 of the light reflector, extends from the horizontal portion I! to the flange l l of the upper rail 1 and the flangeis riveted to the member 20 by rivets 2 I.

I will now describe the particular construction of the letter 5. The letter has a body 22 that takes the shape of any letter in the alphabet, 50 as for example, the letter E shown in Figure 1. r The border of the letter is provided with an upwardly extending flange or rim 23 and the top surface of the rim is bevelled inwardly and downwardly at an angle as shown at 24. The surface 55 24 is preferably provided with a different color from the body of the letter and acts as an outline for the letter. As already stated, the body 22 may be black in color and the rim surface 24, green.

Each letter has a depending portion 25 of a thickness that will be snugly received in the rail slot 4. In fact, it is desirable to construct the rail l in such a manner that the front wall 6 will have to be flexed outwardly a slight distance in order to receive the projection 25. When the front wall 6 is released, it will yieldingly contact with the projection 25 and will hold the letter againstaccidental removal.

The flange 8 acts as a support for the letters since it bears against a portion of the rim 23 that is disposed at the bottom of the letter.. The flange will in addition reinforce the front wall 6 of the rail. Since all of the letters placed in the slot 4 have their lower rim portions 23 contacting with the flange 8, it follows that the flange will act as a guide for arranging all of the letters in a horizontal line. Although the drawing shows a letter; it is obvious that numbers and other' characters may be formed in the same manner.

Figure 1 shows the projection 25 being provided with an opening 26. This opening receives a supporting member such as a nail or a short piece of pipe when the letter is not in use, and in this way the unused letters may be filed away alphabetically. Figure 4 shows two of the letters arranged on top of each other in the same manner as if they were supported by a nail or the like. It will be noted that the bevelled top 24 of the lower letter extends away from the contacting surface of the upper letter. In this way the upper portion 24 is protected against scratching by the upper letter.

From the foregoing description of the various parts of the device, the operation thereof may be readily understood.

In Figure 3 I show the direction taken by certain light rays, and these are indicated by broken lines 21. These light rays are shown as cutting across the face of the letter at an angle, after they have been projected through the translucent glass 3. The rim 23 of the letter prevents these light rays from cutting across too close to the face or body 22 of the letter, and therefore the actual size of the body 22 will clearly show through any stray angular light rays, with the result that the letter will appear to be the same size when artificially illuminated as it appears in daylight. Any sign on the marquee using this type of letter will therefore be visible at a greater distance at night than is now possible where a standard marquee letter is used. The rim 23 not only performs the function just mentioned, but in addition it provides an outline of a contrasting color for the letter during the daytime.

It is obvious that the rail I may be formed from a plurality of pieces of metal, instead of a single piece as illustrated, or it may even be constructed from a solid piece. The rail holds the letter practically against the glass 3, and this will give the most effective setting for the letter. The letter, numbers or characters may be quickly removed and others substituted in their place.

While I have shown only the preferred form on my invention, it should be understood that various changes or modifications may be made within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit of the invention.

I claim:

1. The combination with a marquee, of rails extending across the faces of the marquee and having grooves in their upper edges, marquee characters having depending projections removably received in the grooves, whereby the characters are solely supported only by their depending projections, glasses disposed between and supported by the rails, said glasses being placed behind the characters, and illuminating means disposed in back of the glasses for illuminating them.

2. The combination with a marquee having a rail, said rail having a groove in its upper edge, the front wall of said groove having spring qualities, of a character having a projection receivable in the groove, the projection being yieldingly held in position by the frictional engagement of the front wall thereon and constituting the sole support for the character.

3. The combination with a marquee having a rail with a groove extending downwardly from the top,the front wall of the groove having an outwardly extending flange, of a marquee character having a rim following the contourof the character, the lower portion of the rim resting on the flange, said character also having a projection extending down into the groove'and being frictionaly held by the walls thereof, said projection constituting the sole connection between the character and the groove walls.

4. The combination with a marquee having parallel rails, each rail being constructed of sheet metal and having two grooves in the top and one groove in the bottom, glasses carried by the rails, each glass being received in the bottom groove of one rail and in the rear top grooveof the rail disposed therebelow, of a marquee character provided with a rim that follows the contour of the character, the front wall of the front top rail groove having an outwardly extending flange for supporting the lowermost rim portion of the character, and an integral projection depending from the character and frictionally engaged by the walls of the front top rail groove.

5. In a marquee, a character having a nontransparent face, a glass disposed in back of the character, means for illuminating the glass from the back, and a rim following the outline of the character and extending forwardly from the face of the character for preventing light rays from the glass from cutting directly across and close to the face of the character.

6. A marquee character that looks the same size at night when placed against an illuminated background as in the daylight, said character having a rim following the border of the character and projecting in front of the face of the character, the rim being of a different color than the color of the face of the character and constituting a colored border for the character during daylight, the colored rim being practically invisible when the background surrounding the character is illuminated at night due to certain light rays projecting angularly over the rim, said rim preventing these angular light rays from projecting across and close to the front surface of the character, whereby this surface will appear to be of the same size during night-time as Well as daytime.

'7. The combination with a marquee having a rail, and a glass associated with the rail, of a marquee character provided with a rim that follows the contour of the character, and an integral projection depending from the character, said rail having a groove in its top whose walls fric-" tionally engage with the projection for holding the character in place, the lowermost rim portion of the character resting on top of the rail when the character is in proper position.

8. A marquee character that looks the same size at night when placed against an illuminated background as in the daylight, said character having a rim following the border of the character and projecting in front of the face of the character, said rim preventing angular light rays projected from the illuminated background at night from projecting across and close to the front surface of the character, whereby this surface will appear to be of the same size during nighttime as well as daytime.

9. A marquee character having a rim following the outline of the character and a projection extending from the rim, said projection being receivable in the groove of a supporting rail and said rim constituting a positioning means for the character on the rail.

MORRIS GALLAS. 

